“Reading Light Skin Gone to Waste will remain with us as a multilayered experience and an exquisite example of the art of contemporary American short fiction.”
“In its winding subterranean travelogue, and profoundly evocative, allegorical blues surrealism, The Man Who Lived Underground reads less like a follow-up to Wright’s naturalist
“As a feat of reclamation for the Camelot-like heyday of Black Detroit, Black Bottom Saints, like the legendary impresario at its center, makes plentiful Motown magic.
Post-apocalyptic novels featuring orphaned teenage girl protagonists proliferate. They fill their own shelves in bookstores, and their adaptations feed film studios and crowd streaming services.
Long a staple of antebellum American newspapers, “ranaway slave” advertisements afford the reader fascinating—if also horrific and heartbreaking—insights into the lives of fugitive slaves and their
“Mosley’s new book, John Woman, though it only intermittently delivers the tautly rendered violence and suspense of his detective fiction, is as provocative and morally instructive
“Clemmons’ voice is natural and appealing . . . and . . . what she is telling us is powerfully poignant and emotional, even at times, devastatingly resonant. . . .
One could compare the artistic career of Clarence Major to that of musical genius Miles Davis. Major has always been miles ahead of other African American writers.
“Makeda is beyond ambitious and imaginative and, at times challenging, but it is also well written and powerful, with an ending that is equal parts tragic and romantic in nature.
